1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a calendar timer mechanism for turning on and off a controlled object at preset times and changing preset times as desired, a medical image processing system, and a control program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the image forming field, for example, there are employed image forming apparatus for forming an image captured by an ultrasonic diagnosis, a CT diagnosis, an MRI diagnosis, or an X-ray diagnosis as a visible image on a recording medium such as a photosensitive thermal-development recording medium, for example.
Such image forming apparatus usually have a drum housing a heater such as a halogen lamp or the like and an endless belt trained around about two-thirds of the circumferential surface of the drum and drivable by the drum. When the drum is rotated, a photosensitive thermal-development recording medium is inserted between and fed by the drum and the endless belt. During this time, the heater is energized to heat the photosensitive thermal-development recording medium to thermally develop an image thereon into a visible image.
The image forming apparatus are generally installed in hospitals and other medical facilities. It is customary for such installation sites to have predetermined periods of time during which the image forming apparatus are to be operated for each of the days of the week. It is desirable to schedule times to turn on and off the power supply of the image forming apparatus for each day and automatically control the operation of the image forming apparatus according to the established schedule.
There has been known an automatic operation control system for automatically controlling the operation of an apparatus (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 6-337727). The known automatic operation control system presets times to turn on and off the power supply of the apparatus to be automatically controlled, selects subsequent times to turn on and off the power supply from the preset times, and sets the selected times in a calendar timer device. When one of the set times is reached, the calendar timer device generates a signal to control the power supply.
According to the above automatic operation control system, it is not necessary for the operator to perform external manual control actions each time the power supply is to be turned on and off, instead the power supply can automatically be turned on and off by setting a schedule for the power supply control timing one time.
The applicant of the present application has proposed a calendar timer mechanism disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/396,468 as an effective energy saving mechanism. The disclosed calendar timer mechanism controls a processing apparatus to easily perform efficient and economic processing operations.